Alex Neil outlined Sunderland's main weakness this season, which he probably saw as soon as he walked through the door. He has explained what he's done to stop conceding so many goals, and finding the balance between solidity and keeping the attacking flair...
WEAKNESS
“When you walk into a football club at any point when you are dealing with the squad and how you are going to perform, you need to focus on what the weakness is which is costing you."
DEFENCE
“What the weakness was, in my opinion, was we had conceded the most goals in the top half of the league. When you are going for promotion from any league you can’t be conceding that many goals."
BALANCE
“I think what we have seen is an improvement in that side of things. It does mean at times we are not as free-flowing as we’d like to be. Equally, to try and do both of these things in such a condensed period with guys who haven’t played or have played too much is really hard."
NATURAL TALENT
“We have naturally got goals in the team anyway, so what I think I’ve done is fixed the defensive structure and made that better - that has allowed us a platform to go and pick up the points we have. We’ve got great options going forward, and that’s the bit I have focused on less because I think naturally their talent and ability will score us goals regardless."
SOLID
“Providing we get the defensive structure right then it allows us to be defensively solid, because there is no point scoring three goals if they score four. Don’t get me wrong there is a method in doing that, but I would argue that’s the method which we’ve approached this season."
CONCEDE LESS
“The simple fact is there have been too many large defeats and for us to be competing and challenging at the top end, to concede three, four, five and six in one season is too many goals to concede. There is no surprise that if you look at the key factors and key stats over the course of a season as to how you get promotion, Wigan and Rotherham are in the top five for nearly every single category and we’re not."
GETTING THERE
“What I need to do is make sure I get us into as many of the top five categories as quickly as possible and I think we are starting to get there.”
